Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Whitman Again Stresses Google Is Not Competitor...But Plans Local Play..... In this AP story covering a Goldman conference in AZ, eBay chief Whitman says she sees Google and Yahoo and other search players as enablers of her business. "We think both natural search and paid search are allies of ours," she said. But, in the same speech, she noted that eBay is planning to get back into the local auction market, something they tried in the late 90s that did not take off. The story failed to note the obvious: local search is a very hot market right now, and I doubt that has escaped Whitman. Search is not a competitor? Perhaps. But just to be sure...better shore up the local angle. (AP story via Gary, thanks!)... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 10:08:27 PM    comment []

Industry Brains Launches RSS Paid Listings. Our buddy Matt is a pioneer over at Infoworld. Full text of press release is in the extended entry. Snips: IndustryBrains, the only business performance based media firm that specializes in contextual, site-specific advertising, announced today it has expanded its business to include syndication of paid listings to publishers participating in RSS-driven content feeds.... Just as with IndustryBrains’ web-based paid listings, its RSS technology is private-labeled by partner sites and is completely transparent to the user. This enables publishers to leverage their brand and relationships with advertisers who are willing to pay more for placement on a highly regarded site. IDG’s Infoworld and CMP Media’s Techweb Network have implemented IndustryBrains listings as part of their category specific RSS syndication.... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 10:08:08 PM    comment []